Traditional Chinese 馬德新 Traditional Chinese 復初 Simplified Chinese 马德新 Simplified Chinese 复初 | Hanyu Pinyin Name Yusuf Dexin Wade–Giles Ma Te-hsin Died 1874 | |
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Similar People Ma Bufang, Ma Fuxiang, Noor Deen Mi Guangjiang, Chang Tung Sheng, Ma Xianda | ||
Yusuf Ma Dexin (also Ma Tesing; 1794–1874) was a Hui Chinese scholar of Islam from Yunnan, known for his fluency and proficiency in both Arabic and Persian, and for his knowledge of Islam. He also went by the Chinese name Ma Fuchu. He used the Arabic name Abd al-Qayyum Ruh al-Din Yusuf (عبد القيوم روح الدين يوسف). He was also styled as "Mawlana al-Hajj Yusuf Ruh al-Din Ma Fujuh" (مولانا الحاج يوسف روح الدين ما فو جوه).
Contents
Biography
Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar was an ancestor in the 25th generation of Ma Dexin.
Hajj
Ma performed the Hajj in 1841, leaving China by a circuitous route; as ocean travel out of China had been disrupted by the Opium War, he chose instead to leave with a group of Muslim merchants travelling overland. After passing through Xishuangbanna, they went south to Burma, then took a riverboat along the Irrawaddy River from Mandalay to Rangoon. From Rangoon, they were able to board a steamship which took them all the way to the Arabian Peninsula. After his time in Mecca, he stayed in the Middle East for another eight years; he first went to Cairo, where he studied at Al-Azhar University, then travelled throughout the Ottoman Empire, going to Suez, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Istanbul, Cyprus, and Rhodes.
Return to China
As a prominent Muslim in Yunnan, Ma became involved in the Panthay Rebellion in Yunnan shortly after he returned from the Hajj. The Panthay Rebellion, which flared up in 1856 as part of a wider series of uprisings by Muslims and other minorities, was led mainly by Du Wenxiu; though Ma disagreed with Du Wenxiu's revolutionary methods, he also encouraged his followers to aid in the uprising; later, he would try to act as a peacemaker between the central government forces and the rebels. Ma Dexin said that Neo-Confucianism was reconcilable with Islam, approved of Ma Rulong defecting to the Qing and he also assisted other Muslims in defecting. However, despite his efforts to bring about peace, the Qing government still regarded him as a rebel and a traitor; he was executed two years after the suppression of the rebellion. Europeans reported that he was either poisoned or executed.
Works
Sources say that Ma produced the first Chinese translation of the Qur'an, as well as writing numerous books in Arabic and Persian about Islam. His most famous writings compared Islamic culture and the Confucian philosophy in an effort to find a theoretical and theological basis for their coexistence. At the same time, he harshly criticised the absorption of Buddhist and Taoist elements into the practise of Islam in China. As he is generally regarded as an orthodox Islamic thinker, his writings also demonstrated a positive attitude towards Tasawwuf, or Sufi mysticism. In total, he published over 30 books, most of which fall into five categories.
Ma Dexin appears to have picked up anti-Shia hatred from his time in the Ottoman lands and referred to them by the derogatory name Rafida 若废子 in his works which attacked and criticized Shias and Sufis. Ma, like other most other Hui in China, belonged to the Hanafi Madhhab of Sunni Islam.
The Chinese Muslim Arabic writing scholars Ma Lianyuan 馬聯元 1841-1903 was trained by Ma Fuchu 馬复初 1794-1874 in Yunnan with Ma Lianyuan writing books on law 'Umdat al-'Islām (عمدة الإسلام) شىي ش grammar book on ṣarf (صرف) called Hawā and Ma Fuchu writing a grammar book on naḥw (نحو) called Muttasiq (متسق) and Kāfiya (كافية). Šarḥ al-laṭā'if (شرح اللطائف) Liu Zhi's The Philosophy of Arabia 天方性理 (Tianfang Xingli) Arabic translation by (Muḥammad Nūr al-Ḥaqq ibn Luqmān as-Ṣīnī) (محمد نور الحق إبن لقمان الصيني), the Arabic name of Ma Lianyuan. Islamic names, du'ā' (دُعَاء), ġusl (غسل), prayers, and other ceremonies were taught in the Miscellaneous studies (Zaxue) 雜學 while 'āyāt (آيات) from the Qur'ān were taught in the Xatm al-Qur'ān (ختم القرآن) (Haiting). Ma Fuchu brought an Arabic Qasidat (Gesuide jizhu 格随德集注) poem to China. It was al-Būṣīrī's Qaṣīdat al-Burda.